City releases research and engagement results on legalized recreational cannabis

To ensure that the sale and use of recreational cannabis reflects Calgarians’ values, The City of Calgary has conducted research and engagement to gather information on citizens’ attitudes toward legalization and their preferences for regulating recreational cannabis in Calgary. These research and engagement results are now available at Calgary.ca/cannabis and will inform the necessary amendments of existing bylaws and help The City determine if new bylaws are needed.

“Calgarians responded to our engagement efforts in great numbers,” says Matt Zabloski, lead for The City’s cannabis legalization project. “The public online feedback form received the highest volume of citizen input of The City’s 2017 engagement projects, receiving more than 15,000 contributions. We’re very pleased that so many Calgarians took part and shared with us their attitudes and opinions.”

Research and engagement activities took place November 2017 – January 2018 and consisted of targeted stakeholder workshops, a public online feedback form, a telephone survey, focus groups and in-depth interviews. These methods were carefully designed to gather citizen input on matters including:

Business regulations

Retail sales

Consumption

Home growing

“While The City of Calgary’s response to legalization will need to work within the federal legislation and the provincial framework, the feedback that we’ve received will be significant in the decisions we make around amending bylaws and determining regulations that address areas of citizen concern,” Zabloski explains.

The City is still aiming to have bylaws amended for April 2018 to help Calgarians understand the amendments before legalization comes into effect. The exact date of Canada-wide legalization is yet to be specified by the federal government.